


The Texture of Persimmons

by Cinaed



Category: Life
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Male Friendship, Pre-Canon, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/pseuds/Cinaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My mother said every persimmon has a sun inside, something golden, glowing, warm as my face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Texture of Persimmons

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the pilot. Thanks go out to firebubbles310 for beta-reading this for me. The summary and title come from Li-Young Lee's Persimmons.

_Some things never leave a person:  
scent of the hair of one you love,  
the texture of persimmons,  
in your palm, the ripe weight._  
\- "Persimmons" by Li-Young Lee

It's funny, the things you remember and the things you forget. Over the years, Charlie has created a filing system in his head, one which divides his memories into categories: remembered, half-remembered, forgotten. 

**  
**

_Remembered:_ 

That last night before the world as he knows it goes mad, Jennifer attempts to make a meal that would do her Grandma Billy Jo proud. Instead, she burns the ham black, the peaches turn into soggy orange lumps, and the deep-fried okra winds up tasting funny, so that Jen's face crumples a little with disappointment at her first bite of it. Then again, the funny flavor might just be the taste of okra. It's the first and last time he eats it, so he can't be certain. 

The only saving grace is the sweet tea, which Jen has somehow managed to get just right. He winds up drinking his dinner instead, as Jen looks mournfully at the meal and says, "This looked a lot easier when my grandmother was making it. I'll have to call my mother and see what I did wrong." 

Charlie just smiles and pours her another glass of tea. Their hands touch for a moment and he feels that familiar rush of almost-painful joy that accompanies the thought that Jen said "I do" to him of all people, that she was swayed by his adoration to accept the ring he offered her. Surely he can't be this lucky.

He's right. Charlie's lucky streak ends the minute one of his best friends dies, his wife's screams the last thing Tom probably hears as the killer pursues her. Poor Tom's a-cold-- no, poor Tom's dead, and things will never be the same. 

_Half-Remembered:_

He remembers the knock at the door that interrupted his breakfast. Jennifer flushes when she realizes that she is only in her bra and a pair of his boxers. 

"Well, go answer it," she says, embarrassed enough to be snappish, and disappears into the bedroom to presumably put on something decent. 

Charlie finishes his orange juice -- he's indifferent to fruits and vegetables, really, but Jen's been on a health kick lately and insists that he drinks a glass of orange juice and takes a vitamin every morning -- and goes to answer the door. 

That's when the memory begins to unravel. He remembers pieces of it, like how pale and ill and _guarded_ Bobby had looked. For the life of him, though, he can't remember how he was told of the Seybolts' deaths, if Bobby told him or simply escorted him to the station. He suspects it was Bobby, fumbling awkwardly for words, but he cannot be certain. 

The rest of that day is blank, tucked away somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind. Sometimes he wishes he could remember, but most days he's grateful. Some things are best left forgotten. 

_Forgotten:_ 

He doesn't know who gave him the book on Buddhism-- one of the guards, maybe, as their idea of a joke. Or perhaps one of the other inmates left it behind in Solitary, and he picked it up out of boredom. 

Either way, he just remembers one day clutching the book like a lifesaver, like it's going to stop him from drowning when he already knows he's a dead man walking. The philosophy, the concept, buoys him, though, touches something inside him he thought was dead. The battered pages and the words on them keep that spark alive, and he's grateful to whoever passed the book along to him. 

Charlie offers to let Ted borrow it, once, but Ted just looks puzzled and says something about being agnostic. That's okay. Charlie's sort of glad Ted said no thank-you. 

Charlie lets himself have this, tracing the title with his fingertips before he goes to bed like a good-luck charm. 

**  
**

Constance hugs him, laughing, deliriously giddy that he's free. Charlie looks at her and thinks about how beautiful she is when she smiles. He breathes in her perfume -- orange, and the scent shouldn't make his mouth water when he knows it's only perfume, but it does. 

A fragment of song surfaces -- _And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China_ -- and he feels something warm in his chest. It takes him a moment to realize it might be happiness. 

"Charlie, Charlie, Charlie," Constance is saying, like a mantra or a song, and Charlie smiles, slowly. 

"Got any oranges?" he asks. 

Later, when he's free, the prison behind him like a bad dream that won't come again, will never come again, and more money in his bank account than he could spend in a lifetime, he goes into a supermarket and comes out with a bag filled with fruit. 

When he gets back to the hotel he's staying at (temporarily), he pulls one out, blindly, and lets his fingers search out his first fresh fruit in a dozen years.

It's a persimmon, soft and spotted brown. The cashier told him that's when they're ripe, which doesn't make much sense to Charlie, but when he peels it and puts the first slice into his mouth, the meat is so sweet that he closes his eyes. 

He keeps his eyes closed for a moment, the sweetness lingering in his mouth, and then opens them, looks out his window. L.A. is spread out before him like a homecoming banquet. It's going to be a good day.


End file.
